


It was you

by RaiseYourVoice



Category: ONE OK ROCK
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-21 07:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17638061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaiseYourVoice/pseuds/RaiseYourVoice
Summary: Walking down the hallway and along the windows of the other classrooms, Toru felt basically every student’s eyes trailing after him and, yeah, he would definitely be the talk of the day as the new kid, that much was already certain. This was so far from how he had imagined his first day at school to go and it had only just started. This was not boding well for him.Once again, Toru inwardly bemoaned the fact that his mother had decided to move to Tokyo after divorcing his father. It was so excessive to move to a whole other city, prefecture even, just because she split with her husband. They could have easily stayed in Osaka but still moved far enough away to not risk running into him if that was what his mother was worried about. Not that she had actually listened to him suggesting this, obviously. No, she rather moved miles away from where Toru knew the streets like the back of his hand, forcing him to switch school mere two years before he graduated and make even more of a mess of his life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [It was you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6120610) by [RaiseYourVoice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaiseYourVoice/pseuds/RaiseYourVoice). 



> For some reason, I decided to dig my old stories up again and pick this one to translate into English. It's probably gonna differ a bit from the original since I hate proper word-by-word translations and it's more fun this way, rewriting things a little bit. The old story is from about six years ago, after all.

Toru had to admit that, despite his best efforts, he was terribly nervous while following the secretary through the empty hallways of his new school. The sound of her heels bouncings off the walls unnerving him even further as he tried to not think about how awful it was to be _the new kid_.

The secretary wasn’t exactly the talkative kind, only speaking as much as necessary to explain the absolute basics to him but other than that, she kept her lips pressed together in a stoic, thin line while stalking down the hallway at a speed that even Toru’s long legs had trouble keeping up with. He already didn’t like this woman, like, _at all_.

The first thing she had greeted him with was the announcement that he better dyed his hair back to brown or black later that day if he didn’t want to find himself getting in trouble and he hated actually considering to do just that but Toru refused to say goodbye to the dirty blond he had grown quite fond of only to please some stuck up adults.

His school in Osaka didn’t have such strict rules, not even about how students were supposed to wear their uniforms so Toru felt quiet wrongfooted in this place that was apparently a lot more archaic when it came to such traditions as he was used to.

Walking down the hallway and along the windows of the other classrooms, Toru felt basically every student’s eyes trailing after him and, yeah, he would definitely be the talk of the day as the new kid, that much was already certain. This was so far from how he had imagined his first day at school to go and it had only just started. This was not boding well for him.

Once again, Toru inwardly bemoaned the fact that his mother had decided to move to Tokyo after divorcing his father. It was so excessive to move to a whole other city, prefecture even, just because she split with her husband. They could have easily stayed in Osaka but still moved far enough away to not risk running into him if that was what his mother was worried about. Not that she had actually listened to him suggesting this, obviously. No, she rather moved miles away from where Toru knew the streets like the back of his hand, forcing him to switch school mere two years before he graduated and make even more of a mess of his life.

The only good thing about moving to Tokyo: he could finally reunite with two old friends that had moved here years ago. Alex had moved to Tokyo with his mother about five years ago while Ryouta’s family had moved about two years ago as well. His two closest and best friends whom he had only been able to stay in contact via internet and phone, only seeing them in person two or three times in all these years. So, at least he would have two people in the city and wouldn’t end up completely on his own.

“Here we are,” the secretary interrupted his thoughts and Toru raised his head from where he had been staring at the dark floor, barely managing to stop in his tracks before he could walk straight into the displeased looking lady. “Your course teacher is informed so you can head right in, Yamashita-kun.”

His gaze flickered to the white door they had stopped in front of and he swallowed thickly, nerves kicking up another notch but he tried to tamper the fluttery feeling in his stomach down and appear unfazed. Toru was quite confident, usually, but even he felt uneasy in a completely new place where he was guaranteed to be the centre of attention for the foreseeable future.

Without another word, not even a friendly ‘good luck’, the secretary whose name had already slipped Toru’s mind, turned on her heels and clicked away down the hallway, leaving him to his own devices. Great.

Toru’s gaze followed her until she rounded the corner and disappeared from his line of sight, then he focused back on the door in front of him and, with a deep breath, raised his hand to knock at the door after resisting the urge to nervously card his fingers through his hair.

_Here goes nothing…_

The teacher opening the door was a middle-aged woman with soft features and a kind smile, almost beaming when she spotted her new student and gestured for him to step into the classroom.

“Last week I already told you that we will get a new student,” the teacher addressed the class with a smile and motioned for Toru to properly step up to the front of the class where everyone could see him. “How about you introduce yourself to the others?”

Toru glanced around, briefly taking in the sight of the people he would see on a regular basis from now on, probably in more than just this one course. Of course, everyone else had either brown or black hair and he became all the more aware of sticking out like a sore thumb with his dyed hair. Maybe he should heed the secretary’s suggestion after all and change his hair colour later?

“Hi. My name is Yamashita, Toru. I moved here this weekend from Osaka and will spend the last two school years here,” he introduced himself, feeling awkward and wishing he could take a seat already instead of standing here to be gawked at by everyone. “I hope we will all get along.”

The last bit was a little bit of a ridiculous notion but their teacher seemed pleased by the addition to his introduction and the fact that he bowed slightly to the class to signal he was done more so than acting polite.

Again, Toru’s gaze roamed across all the new faces and that was when he noticed there was one student who didn’t pay him any mind but kept his attention on the piece of paper in front of him on the table, scribbling away on it. The boy was sitting by the window in the second last row and as if he was sensing Toru’s gaze on him, the other student glanced up and their eyes met for a brief, oddly intense moment.

The eye contact ended as quickly as it had started and then the boy was back to scribbling on his paper, face mostly hidden away by the messy curls tumbling down his head.

Toru was so perplexed by this short moment that he almost missed the teacher finally dismissing him to go take a seat. His fingers curled a little tighter around the strap of his backpack that was slung over one shoulder and then Toru walked towards the seat assigned to him which happened to be the empty table diagonally behind the curly haired boy. He absently wondered if the other’s hair was naturally this curly before brushing that nonsensical thought off and deciding to actually pay attention to what was being said in class.

He wondered how the next two years would turn out to be—if he would be quick to make new friends and if he would struggle with the teaching subjects. As of yet, Toru had no clue if this school was at the same level with the subjects as his old school had been and if not, he hoped they at least weren’t further ahead. He’d just have to wait and see about that, obviously, and while he was still nervous about all of this, Toru was also looking forward to all the new experiences he would be able to make in the capital.


	2. Chapter 2

Toru had expected that a few students would come up to him during the first recess to get to know more about the new student but he hadn’t thought it would be that bad. He was crowded in by quite many other students, asking him where exactly he moved to Tokyo from, why he dyed his hair, wanting to know his hobbies, where he lived now and more stuff along those lines. A few girls even invited him to head to a karaoke bar later with a mixed group but he declined that as politely as possible.

Toru rather wanted to get settled in more and unpack his things, plus he’d rather get to know people a little better before heading out with them.

He had never been more relieved about recess being over and the next classes seemed to drag on unnecessarily slowly. Toru wasn’t terrible at maths but he still didn’t particularly like the subject, though he still preferred it over being bombarded with more questions during the next break between classes, though it wasn’t as bad as during first recess.

The last class of the day was arts, to his dismay, and since he hadn’t known his schedule before today, he hadn’t even brought any supplies along anyway. Toru was terrible at drawing and painting so he couldn’t feel too bad about not having supplies at hand. Sadly, his teacher prompted him to ask one of the other students to borrow their supplies in order to take part in the class and Toru’s shoulders slumped a little.

After glancing around the classroom for a moment, he noticed that most of them had already started copying the picture that was currently projected onto the wall at the front of the class. His eyes stopped at the figure that occupied the spot next to his own, recognising that it was the curly haired boy from earlier today, the one he had noticed right away, for some reason.

Toru headed back to his table, sitting down and twisting his upper body to face the other boy to ask if he could borrow a pencil. This time, the boy did actually seem to pay attention to class and to do the task they were told to do and Toru paused for a moment, just watching the way the other boy’s fingers moved a pencil across the paper in front of him.

The boy seemed quite sure of what he was doing since there were barely any stutters in the movements of his hand and his eyes always flickered up to the projection on the wall every now and then.

Toru noticed the other was wearing black-framed glasses by now and for some unknown reason, that fact made his lips twitch into the hint of a smile.

“Uhm, excuse me?” Toru finally opened his mouth when he caught the teacher looking at him and arching her eyebrows at him for still not having started on the assignment.

When a few seconds ticked by without the other boy reacting, Toru felt a little bit ignored and frowned but since he didn’t know the boy’s name, he couldn’t exactly address him more properly. So, his only available course of action was to reach out and gently nudge the other’s shoulder with his fingertips to gain his attention.

The way the other boy flinched at the sudden touch even startled Toru a little and he plastered a lopsided, apologetic smile onto his face when the other teenager stared at him with wary confusion.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I didn’t bring any art supplied since I only got my schedule this morning. I was wondering if I could maybe borrow one of your pencils?” Toru asked with a careful smile.

To his confusion, the other boy stared at him in silence for a heartbeat before he merely nodded and nudged his pencil case to the centre of their table in a silent offer for Toru to take whatever he needed before getting back to working on his own assignment.

What was going on with this boy? Did he swallow his tongue or why was he so stubbornly silent all the time?

Toru felt a little annoyed by this odd behaviour but he figured it was none of his business and since he got what he needed, he brushed it off and simply reached for the nearest pencil that had rolled out of the pencil case before.

He placed the tip of the pencil on his own piece of paper, staring at the projected picture on the wall ahead and wondered once again how on earth he was supposed to be able to copy that but he started trying anyway. Toru knew the picture would look worse than if an elementary school kid had done it but this kind of art really wasn’t his forte.

While he tried to copy the assigned picture, Toru caught himself glancing at the boy next to him every once in a while and he had to admit the other was quite good at drawing. He wasn’t as good as Toru’s friend Alex who was ridiculously talented in this regard, but it was still obvious what his picture was supposed to be.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a girl from his class—she introduced herself as Kaneko, Mie—who suddenly showed up and tried to give him advice on how to better be able to copy the picture. Toru listened and nodded but he honestly had no clue what she meant by all that talk about perspective. Vanishing point? He doubted she meant the place he’d rather vanish to instead of sitting here and doing terrible art.

“Ah, dammit,” Toru muttered, interrupting another one of the girl’s explanations. She blinked at him in confusion and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, clearly attempting to make the gesture seem endearing, but Toru didn’t pay too much attention to it because he had just noticed that his seatmate had already left the classroom with the first sound of the bell.

“I still have his pencil,” he said with a sigh and stared at said object still perched between his fingers. Mie gave him a rather odd look at that, followed by a dismissive gesture.

“You borrowed it from Moriuchi, right? Just hand it back whenever, don’t worry,” she said and the sound of her voice caused Toru to frown—just like the fact that she used the other boy’s name in such an impolite manner. 

Toru didn’t ask about it, though, because he had a feeling it would lead to nothing anyway. So, he shoved the pencil into his own bag along with his crappy drawing and then slung the backpack over his shoulder. At least now he knew the other boy’s last name.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll hand it back to him tomorrow, then. I’ve got to go now. See you around,” Toru said and simply started walking out of the room even though he did notice the girl had been about to say something.

Somehow he got a feeling she had wanted to ask him to go somewhere together now that school was over but besides the fact that Toru just wanted to get home after his first day at school, he honestly didn’t care too much about spending time outside of school with her.

All the boxes waiting for him at home, needing to be unpacked, seemed amusingly more enticing than spending more time with a girl he didn’t know past her name and her ramblings about drawing that he hadn’t been able to follow at all.

At least it didn’t take him too long to get home since he lived relatively close by and the route had been easy enough to memorise. While unlocking the front door of the apartment complex that he was now calling his home, Toru suddenly had to think of Moriuchi again. Not once had he seen the boy exchange a single word with one of the other students and he wondered if the other was simply a loner by choice or if there was more to it.

Toru climbed the stairs to the third floor, not knowing why he couldn’t stop wondering about this boy he didn’t know anything about. Sure, Moriuchi was the first person that had somehow caught his attention today but the boy was as inconspicuous as could be, despite his unusually curly hair and maybe his odd behaviour.

Maybe he would manage to get the boy to talk when he handed back the pencil the next day.


End file.
